Tiwonana, Binion

When I started my internship in Zambia, my host organization was in the bewildering process of switching office buildings. Being new and relatively unimportant, when I showed up to check out my new digs, I discovered they were non-existent. Already three weeks into my internship and not wanting to waste any more time, I stubbornly took up residence in the hallway. It was awful. I had no access to a company phone and a wireless signal that was so weak I had to walk to one end of the hallway to download my email, then walk back to my chair to check it.

About a week into this sorry state of affairs, someone from the Zambian Community Media Forum (Zacomef) – a smaller organization that rented office space from my hosts – asked me what on earth I was doing loitering in the hallway. After explaining that, no, I wasn’t waiting to see someone, the young man became very concerned and insisted that I work from their office, at least temporarily. He introduced himself to me as Binion Kapoma, and I ended up working alongside him for the rest of my time in Lusaka.

In the early days of being in such a strange new place, Binion was a godsend. Not only did I now have a huge desk to myself, high-speed internet and a landline, but he constantly listened to good reggae and hip-hop. Kanye, Marley, Peter Tosh and Lucky Dube were as likely to fill the office as were conversations about the struggles of community newspapers and radio stations across the country. I was at once more relaxed, more engaged and more at home in my own skin.

When Binion quickly realized I had no ability to communicate in the local language, he taught me as much as I wanted to know. And when he saw that I didn’t know what to do with myself at lunch, he took me to the local food stand, where I never once saw another white person but grew to love eating with my hands and joking around with the lunch ladies.

Throughout my stay in Lusaka, Binion and I became good friends. He would come over and drink Castle at my place on weekends. I visited his home to see his first child, a son that we joked should be named after me. All the while we worked closely together as I identified Binion’s work with community journalists as an area where I could make the most difference in my small window of opportunity. He was more than happy to facilitate my eagerness, and we embarked on an epic journey across Zambia to deliver a three-day training workshop to some of the most in-need reporters I’ve ever met. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was the most professionally rewarding experience of my young career.

We’ve stayed in touch since I left, with Binion acting as one of my references that helped me get my current job. The other day I was just thinking of emailing him to ask about the office, his baby boy and any other Lusaka gossip he was willing to share.

That was until I received the news this morning that Binion died last night.

I don’t know how, exactly, other than he passed away in hospital after being admitted for an ‘illness’ a few days ago. I'm desperately trying to find out more. He couldn’t have been older than 35.